, 1887-05-04
MAKING MATCHES.
HOW MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES DO
THEIR WORK IN PARIS.

Their It%amihcRtions Found in An spheres
Of so~clety-The Discoveries Made by
tho Secondary Agcuts"-How = Match
Is Made.
There are at the present moment In
Paris between fifty and sixty serious mai
rimOnial agencies, having ramiflcations
in all spheres of society. Furthermore,
% per cent. of the marriages in the middle
and upper classes of Paris are arranged
by these agencies. This Is a fact which
has been established by careful inquiry.
Now, let us see how the agency Is organ
lied and how the machinery works.
Anatole desires to marry. He does not
know q girl that will suit him; his friends
cannot help him; the usages of Parisian
life prevent him from making %acquaint-
ances among marriageable maidens. lie
therefore goes to an agency INC says, we
will suppose, to the manager:
monsieur, / am "a years of age; | am
an employe in the Bilateral Filter com
pany; / earn $50 u month, but hope to get
IN increase next year. Can you find me
a nice young wife, pretty, bright and an
orphanf 1 do not care to have n mother
in-law, and l don't mind If the young
lady Is not q musician"
The matrimonial agent looks over his
books, reflects, and replies;
Monsieur, / think 1 can just fix you.
Lady, 30 years of age, agreeable exterior,
small house near Dion, expectations
IS, 800, daughter of q retired military
man, excellent pianist"
Anatole accepts at once, and two
months later he is married and happy,
and his excellent wife, who knows
nothing about the intervention of the dis
craat onanru avr1a;p,a Ia "a Dnrnnn 80
expansion: 'My Anatole, what q lucky
idea that you stopped at Dion on your
way to Geneval Had it not been for hat
we might never nave metz
o DID IT HAPPEN,
Now comes the question. How did the
matrimonial agent know that this modest
and honorable spinster was waiting for a
husband on the outskirts of Dijonf The
answer is, because he has correspondents
all over France, who send him informa-
ton and exercise q sort of secret police on
his account. In the provinces, everybody
knows everything about everybody else,
and 1t is easy for the correspondents of the
matrimonial agents to note that Mile. A.
has inherited $50, 200, that Mile. B. has q
weakness for lawyers, and that Mile. c.
has refused to take the veil. Every good"
you will say. 'Now tell me how the
matrimonial agent manages to bring the
young people togetheryn This is precisely
the point where the genius comes into
play, aided often by an obliging priest.
TIL matrimonial agent has under his
command a whole army of secondary
agents, who may be classified under seven.
headings, viz, scouts, entertainers having
homes, permanent or temporary inquiry
agents. travellers, followers, ~introducers,
and conscious or unconscious intermedi-
aries.
The chief scout of a first class Partisan
matrimonial agency was formerly n body
servant of Cavour; he married the cham
bermaid of a fashionable beauty of the
court Of Napoleon III; and now he
and his wife earn in their new profess
sion $2,0 0 a year. Their business is
to discover marriageble girls and to re-
port them at headquarters; the ex-valet
of Cavour gossips at cafes with men ser
vants in rich families; he learns the modus
vivandi of each family; he gets the lanes
of oil the friends of q family, and, If neces-
sary, the names of the friends of the
friends; thanks to this information the
chief matrimonial agent is able to dis
cover among these names either that of a
person affiliated with the agency, or else
an unconscious agent who will introduce
his client to the family of the young lady
whose hand and dowry arc to be won.
AShNlS ON lhE LOOAOIls
Travellers are agents sent to the
provinces, and especially to the seaside or
to watering places, OH some special mis-
sion. Followers are volunteer agents who
60 to marriages and midday masses in the
Paris churches, remark young girls ac-
companied by their mothers, follow them
to their homes, and by dint of patience
discover who they are, what they are
worth, II SO constitute n sort of dossicr
or brief, which they sell to an agency.
Conscious Intermediates are financial
agents, solicitors or notaries whose bust
ness enables them to collect in
formation Of a private kind. As for
the unconscious agents, they are
created by the conscious interme-
diary, who calls Upon a friend of
the family about which Information is re-
quired, or upon a doctor or a priest who
is in relations with thai family. This con-
scious intermediary has an honorable
social position; he epologizes for intruding
Il says that he has been sent to ask for
information In view Of a marriage much
desired by a person whom he is not yet Mt
liberty to name. The family is puzzled,
wonders who the mysterious person may
be and answers vaguely, perhaps, but
sufficiently to enable the agency to know
what are the desires of the family. Then,
If the agency has not on its books a client
capable of realizing those desires, it is but
n poor agency.
Ile bride rarely knows that she has
been won through-the intermediary of an
agency. 1t is only the very richly lowered
who are aware of the existence of this
complicated and mysterious machinery,
and who are therefore tempted to see in
every Young man with whom they waltz a
client of q matrimonial agency which is
seeking to earn its usual commission on
the dowry. Thanks to the extension OF
the operations of matrimonial agencies,
French marriages in the middle and upper
~ylcsscs tend more and more to become
merely operations of loveless and arith-
metical NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Cor. New
York sun.
Name of a Glass Color.
The unique name of u class color in "a
l nLAnrsiIN mot fnr from Rnntnn l. mo q "